Virus from Norway destroys Chile's salmon industry

Peter Cohan
June 20, 2009
Daily Finance

I recently returned from a week in Chile, the long South American country that formerly trailed Norway as the world's leading producer of Salmon. Like Norway, a large region of Chile is full of fjords whose moderate water temperatures make them an ideal breeding ground for salmon. But Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISA), a disease reportedly imported from Norway, has wiped out Chile's salmon industry quite suddenly. Now Norway is taking up the slack.

Due to ISA -- a highly contagious virus that can be lethal to fish but does not affect humans -- global farmed salmon production is expected to fall between 7 and 12 percent in 2009 to between 1.17 million and 1.24 million metric tons. ISA is wiping out most of Chile's production -- leading to a 67 percent decline to 120,000 metric tons, in 2009. 

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